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My wife went roundtrip Michigan./Texas on Amtrak earlier this year. She loved it. There were no downsides at all. Except that their entire ticketing process is neanderthal. You cannot board a train if you do not have a ticket in hand, they charge huge penalties if you lost your ticket, if you are booked less than 9 days in advance, they DHL your ticket to you, you must sign for it, which means you must be in a place where you can sit all day and wait for DHL to bring it. More than 9 days, they just put in an envelope with a 43 cent stamp on it, but less than 9 days, you have to sign for it from a courier. How dumb is that? They also charge yuo 25 bucks for the privilege of having a courier bring it.
So ticketing is great if you are starting out from home and book ten days in advance. It is a nightmare if not.
MA/OK will work both ways, with train changes in Chicago and Dallas, with connecting times of about 4 hours.
My wife was expecting her connecting time in Chicago to allow her to spend the afternoon at the art museum, but somebody committed suicide by jumping in front of the train, so they were delayed. Amtrak trains are the only trains that go fast enough to hurt anybody, so they are becoming a popular form of suicide.
Butterfly, do you have any commuter trains in OK that you can try out? Is there perhaps an Amtrak short trip you can take, for a trial run, just to see what's involved?
I know nothing about OK, so I'll take a peek at Amtrak's website to see if they have a shorter run you could try.
Ok, I looked up Amtrak. The route called The Heartland Flyer runs daily, starts in Oklahoma City (8:25am) and ends at Fort Worth TX (12:39pm). Stops in Norman, Purcell, Paul's Valley, Ardmore, and Gainesville. One way passage is $11.00 (quite a bargain!). Tickets cannot be purchased at any of those stations (except Fort Worth), but you do need a reservation. Then you simply board the train and the conductor will let you purchase on the spot. The route has a cafe car. Perhaps you can give that a try!
For more info, explore their website: Amtrak. To get the specific info I found, I clicked on the Routes tab on the top of their site.
HTH and good luck! Try it, I think you might like it!
Last edited by Nelly Nomad; 04-25-2009 at 09:43 AM..
Just so you know, Butterflykisses, here is some info I scouted out about a trip similar to the one you mentioned. I didn't know your travel dates so I just arbitrarily chose May 5 thru May 16, which is about a week and a half long trip.
From Oklahoma City to Boston....
AMTRAK
- Cost for lowest fare in coach with AAA discount was $370.00 RT
- at least 2 train changes
- layovers are 1.5 hours and 7 hours
- The trip is 46+ hours each way, NOT including layovers
Plane (by Expedia search)
- Cost for lowest coach fare was $332.00 RT (all taxes and fees included)
- 2 Plane changes each way
- layovers are an hour or two
- Total trip time is 8 hours each way including layovers
with layovers it's well over 50 hours each way by train. that's over 2 full days of traveling. Figure you have to spend money for food in that time unless you figure out a way to bring 2 full days worth of food with you, or will go hungry till you reach your destination, so the cost goes up.
The train seems to be good for any of the following reasons:
- you want to go to Chicago for a few hours on your way to Massachussetts, so a 7 hour layover in Chicago might be good (then again, you have your bags w/ you unless they check them through for you)
- You want to see the nation (but from the responses so far, views and scenery are not a big plus for train travel in the US)
- You have a severe fear of flying or severe claustrophobia which is almost debilitating
I think the last reason is the only real reason I can see anyone choosing the train over flying.
Flying is cheaper, much faster, and much more convenient.
I haven't seen anything yet that shows me otherwise.
Location: God's Gift to Mankind for flying anything
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BergenCountyJohnny
In the US, from what I hear, the tracks mostly roll across rural, plain, flat land or through the back portions of cities and you don't see much that is interesting.
Yes that is true, but there are two or three stretches which are just superior.
Denver to Salt Lake is one of them, if you do it at certain times of the year.
As a matter of fact, when friends from Europe visit us in Utah, we always suggest that they *land* in Denver, and then the train to SLC.
Every single one has told us that that trip was the most memorable they ever have taken.
Yes that is true, but there are two or three stretches which are just superior.
Denver to Salt Lake is one of them, if you do it at certain times of the year.
As a matter of fact, when friends from Europe visit us in Utah, we always suggest that they *land* in Denver, and then the train to SLC.
Every single one has told us that that trip was the most memorable they ever have taken.
I would be certain that the train travel in the West is much better. The American "Orient Express" runs through the Rockies and Western US. If the original poster on this thread were talking about traveling from the middle of the US to the West coast, I might change my tune.
But she is going from Oklahoma to Mass. There are no Rockies, there are no unlittered scenes (meaning unlittered with manmade things like houses and buildings as well as unlittered with trash). Almost all of it will be past a boring field or developments of suburban homes or the back sections of urban areas. Even the Appalachians will offer little respite from the boredom. And we're talking about 2 full days in this trip, 2 full days of scenery which is always the same.
If you've ever been east of the Mississippi, you'd know that it's pretty much all the same. It's not like the West where you go from plains to Rockies to deserts and canyons and then mesas and high desert, etc. In the east, it's just all relatively flat or rolling hills, a mountainous area in the Appalachians, lots and lots of suburban sprawl everywhere, lots of small, old cities many of which are depressed, and the same four seasons pretty much everywhere, so it all looks the same. Rural Illinois will look like rural Indiana and Ohio and PA and NY and NJ. All the same.
So I am sure your advice is great for traveling to the west, but for the east, I wouldn't count on the amazing scenery that you describe.
I have only been on "The Empire Builder" but If you are going to be on the train overnight I would highly recommend paying the extra bucks for a sleeper car. The actual dining car had very very good dinners but a limited menu. My Grilled Wild Salmon was very fresh and tasty.
One thing that did disturb me a little was that we had to stop for an hour or two out in the middle of nowhere to fix the brakes ! Then an hour or two after fixing the brakes we stopped again because some debris had to be cleared off the tracks.
Sleeper car is well worth the extra $$ for overnighting. I think everyone has covered the logistics of train tripping pretty well, I just wanted to put my .02 in about our experience of Amtrak.
As o/s visitors, we found the entire journey fascinating. We went from L.A to New Orleans, a 48 hour trip. The best part for us was at mealtimes, when guests were often seated with other passengers, giving us the chance to meet some really cool folks. It wasn't mandatory to do so, but we really enjoyed that aspect of it. Amongst some of the people we chatted to was a business man heading to N.O for a convention who was meeting his wife there later on. It was gonna be her first time in N.O...we met an Amish couple who were travelling home, having been to Mexico for medical treatment.
Amtrak staff were great, very helpful, polite, good-humored. It was easy to book the tickets, we did so online but I don't know if it's the same procedure from within the U.S.
Yes, occasionally the train would stop for awhile for no apparent reason, but we found the scenery fascinating across the s/west corridor of the U.S. There were spots with lots of trash but we've seen plenty of that in Europe and Oz.
I'd really recommend the trip if you have the time to do it and enjoy it as an experience in itself, not just a way of getting from a to b. Though it was wonderful, we'll probably fly that route from now on, just b/c we've done the train thing now.
Regarding expense, it seems to be determined by circumstance. For my trip, I was booking sort of last minute (about 3 days before the trip). The most reasonable flights I could get cost ~$450 per person, one way (or ~$1,800 round trip for 2 of us). The train cost us a little under $300, 2 people, round trip.
As he mentioned, BCJohnny's experience was far different. In his experience, flying was cheaper than training.
Looks as if you'd need to factor in a number of considerations to determine which is less expensive. Just thought I'd throw that in for consideration.
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